MISREMEMBER - It was Steve Welsh who reminded me that it was Roger Clemens who used the term “misremember” after I misremembered the event leading to the Rich Benson’s last- second goal that enabled Cape lacrosse to defeat Caesar Rodney in the semifinals of the state tournament on the way to a state championship. Here are Steve’s own words:
“The game was tied and I caught the ball at midfield from a Steve Spence 50-yard heave. I ran through about three or four guys (I have to toot my own horn a little) and saw a wide-open Steve Conlon at the left side of the net. I threw it to “Stiff” and when he caught it Rich Benson’s man slid over to cover Stiff and then he threw it to Rich who scored the goal.”
COSMOPOLITAN - If you are a guy and purchase Cosmo magazine on the way out of the Super G because “35 secrets to make her happy” seems like a concept, then you are not very educated or sophisticated, but rather a bit of the idiot.
Thirty years ago I had to call Cape Superintendent Frank Mercer to ask him if I could practice on Sunday with my track team. Mercer informed me that the Cape Region was very cosmopolitan and the people sophisticated and lots of things happened on Sunday like the tides and the boardwalk and also church.
Cosmopolitan is defined as “where people of many ethnicities, religions and cultures meet and live in close proximity especially applied to busy seaports.”
The Bay Ball Classic basketball tournament announced that it is was moving to Dover, and the last time I checked the state capital had no ocean or boardwalk - it is just pretty unrelentingly Dover.
The Cape Henlopen community from the Little Big House to the Boardwalk and ocean was just the best place and provided the best hospitality for the Slam Dunk and the Bay Ball. There will be no discernable negative economic impact on the Cape Region because we’re a happening place and cosmopolitan center of outdoor and indoor sporting activities.
TOO MANY BIG GAMES - I don’t like end-of-the-season conference tournaments in college basketball or allowing certain powerful conferences six invitations to the 65-team Big Dance. Pure athletic focus is limited and even Cosmo magazine can’t come up with 35 motivational speeches prior to big games that you play one at a time not looking past anybody.
If winning the conference is not the same as winning the conference tournament, and if you fail at being a champion twice and still go to the Big Dance - by the way real athletes don’t dance we just posture and look cool - then what is the freaking point?
Make the tournament 32 teams again, win the regular season conference title or go to the NIT with all games held in the Garden. Do real men like to garden? Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said a major difference between North Carolina coach Roy Williams and him is that Williams likes to golf while Coach K likes to garden. Somebody slap me!
STOP MAKING SENSE - That’s the title of an old Talking Heads album and who doesn’t love the lyric, “this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.”
The winds of March blew across the Cape practice fields last Wednesday afternoon as the skeleton of the hulking new double-decker high school with pitched rooflines began to take shape. Cape will be a designer showcase academic and sports facility when completed and I want a designated chair where I can go and just talk to kids with promise and those without much. But build a new house and keep an old garage and where do people and dogs hang out?
I’m getting requests from all corners of our cosmopolitan community to keep the Little Big House issue alive. How many remember that big old gym out at Cape Henlopen State Park? It was used all the time, came down and nothing took its place. Old gyms you can’t hurt and they’re fun and useful. You think lacrosse balls and indoor field hockey and indoor shot puts are flying around a new gym? Think you’re eating pizza in the stands?
SNIPPETS - Tyler Townsend is batting .333 with five home runs and 22 RBIs for the 6-10 Golden Panthers of Florida International University. “You will see him playing in the big leagues someday,” said his high school coach, Ben Evick.
Sean Tappan picked up the pitching win for Delaware Valley College as it defeated the Ospreys of Richard Stockton College. Tappan allowed one hit and one run in two innings of work.
Don “Tarzan” Bragg, a 1960 Olympic gold medalist vaulter where he jumped 15-9 with a metal pole, was the first athletic director at Stockton. Bragg’s autobiography, “A Chance To Dare,” was written by Patricia Doherty, or rather with her. The book can be found at virtualbookworm.com. Bragg once had a full-page picture of himself in Sports Illustrated sitting behind his desk with a big cigar coming out of his nose. Bragg made a Tarzan movie and bit Cheetah in the arm before spitting out monkey hair. Cheetah lived to be 75 years old looking for some serious payback. Bragg benched 410 pounds at age 60. After winning a gold medal in 1960 at 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, he did a summer tour of Europe and gained 60 pounds. There was never more of a guy’s guy than Don “Tarzan” Bragg, and I knew him because he was running buddies with Trenton High and Seton Hall basketball star Nick “The Quick” Workman, the greatest down low pivot man in college basketball history.
Author Edgar Rice Burroughs created the character Tarzan in 1912, and back in my Cape teaching days that revealed fact prompted a Tarzan yelling contest won hands down by soccer player Charlie Dolson in 1986. Before every Cape game that yell would come from the team huddle.
Cape had an outstanding baseball player whose name was Thomas, but teammates and friends called him Cheetah. But not this sportswriter - not in print. Give me a Tarzan yell at davefredman@comcast.net if you want to weigh in with some real Cape history.
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Sports Editor Emeritus
Email Fredman at fredman@capegazette.com
